


a bit of solitude and a soft bed

by Ponderosa



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Identity Issues, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-16 23:39:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“For old times’ sake?” Alfred asked mockingly. He knew what Reggie was asking and hated that he found himself tempted; it’d been a long time since a kind touch, and it made him miss Thomas and Martha all the more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a bit of solitude and a soft bed

The staircase felt twice as long and the house twice as large as Alfred led Reggie up to his room for the night. Reggie had come to him in the scullery, hat in hand to apologize for bringing up the past and the maudlin turn, and with his temper cooled, Alfred had clapped him on the shoulder and said all was well. It wasn’t, though what troubled him yet was Bruce. The boy continuing to uphold his parents’ charitable mores was commendable, but no matter what he claimed, Bruce was starved for company and it showed.

“Would’ve been fine with a blanket by the fire, y’know,” Reggie said. The weariness in his voice had returned and it made Alfred’s next step feel leaden, the melancholy draining the spirit right out of him.

“Nonsense. I’m glad to have you here another night, Reg.” Alfred did his best to be sincere as he brushed away the useless circling of his thoughts. There was no end to worrying about Master Bruce and he could speculate on the truth of Reggie’s circumstance until he had one foot in the grave. 

When they approached the guest chambers Alfred opened the door and stood aside as Reggie moved past him to cast a glance about. Reggie didn’t make a show of it, but Alfred noticed how he reassessed all the dark corners and checked on his belongings, a habit that living rough would have only reinforced. He thumbed the sleeve of the shirt atop the small pile of new clothes and the corner of his mouth twitched. Whether it was a smile or regret, Alfred couldn’t say, but when Reggie pivoted on his heel, Alfred saw that he had a way about him, a certain slant to his shoulders that made the quiet, “Care to stay a few?” no surprise at all.

“For old times’ sake?” Alfred asked mockingly. He knew what Reggie was asking and hated that he found himself tempted; it’d been a long time since a kind touch, and it made him miss Thomas and Martha all the more.

“Was a time a bit of solitude and a soft bed meant you’d already have your trousers off.”

“The house is hardly empty, Reg.”

“Big as it is, it might as well be.” Reggie’s voice carried no envy and it worried Alfred; of all the men in their squad, Reg had always found the most motivation in money. As if it showed on Alfred’s face, Reggie offered a faint smile and drew near. He put his hand on the door. “No, you’re right. I’ve taken advantage of enough of your hospitality and more than enough of your cellar. I shouldn’t have asked if you’d warm my bed on top of it all.”

Alfred hesitated, his insides an ugly knot of worry and longing, and Reggie patted him fondly on the cheek. “Blame it on the drink,” Reggie said as his hand lingered, palm warm and rough. The hinges of the door gave a faint creak as his weight shifted. “I’ll be out of your hair come tomorrow.” Alfred’s gaze dropped to Reggie’s mouth and he knew-- He knew he could move away to avoid the moment when Reggie said, “Oh, fuck it, Alfie,” and leaned into him.

But he didn’t step back. Since fate dumped Reggie on his door he’d been thrown off-balance. This evening had tipped the world sideways all the more, and yet he came unhesitatingly into the kiss, mouth falling into familiar shapes like it’d been only weeks instead of years since he’d known the taste of Reggie’s mouth. 

A quietly uneasy part of him continued to wonder how it was a man like Reggie had fallen so low. Reg and Vanessa had always been like oil and water, and drinking, well, he hadn’t smelled sour when he showed up shivering wet, but the way he’d gone after that bottle-- The way he tasted now, wine-drenched and needy. Still, Alfred thought, without Thomas to have set him on the right path who could say it wouldn’t have been him dirtying his hands for Gotham’s nastier lot. He’d been lucky. He’d been given something to live for when all the blood on his hands had threatened to black his soul. And if their roles were reversed, he couldn’t say he’d have been a big enough man to seek out help.

Alfred put his hand to Reggie’s elbow and held there firmly even as the kiss dissolved into chagrined laughter from the both of them. Committed now, he pushed Reggie into the room and nudged the door shut with his heel. “Didn’t have too much, did you?”

With a widening smile Reggie reached down to give himself a squeeze. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

Gesturing for Reggie to make himself comfortable on the bed, Alfred headed for the toilet and returned a few minutes later with a basket filled with rolled towels and assorted packets of condoms and lube. The Waynes hadn’t entertained to the extent of some of their more hedonistic contemporaries, but they’d kept their guest chambers well appointed. _Imagine if sex wasn’t stigmatized, Alfred. And why should it be when it’s between consenting adults?_

Alfred dropped the basket beside the bed and perched on a chair to remove his shoes and shed his clothes piece by piece while Reggie kept a keen eye on him and did the same. They said nothing now, and as Alfred tugged his undershirt off overhead he wondered if Reggie was similarly cataloguing all the old scars while mapping out the new ones.

After all, they’d been young men the last time they’d fucked; a well fit pair with only a bit of grey on the cheeks and a sprinkling at the temples. It’d been during those five long months in the Gulf when Reggie had let his hair grow into straggly curls that’d tangled around his face. He’d worn it like that just to spite the army lads who had to keep to regulations and they’d fucked in their bunks more than once because no one in the whole goddamn regiment had the stones to report them. Couple of shit stirrers they were then.

Now they were back to circling each other like a pair of old wolves. For a moment Alfred considered that this was as much of a mistake as indulging in the wine. If it’d been any other bottle, he’d have pulled Bruce aside, but to have an excuse to drink it again when the last had been from Thomas’s own cup-- Fucking sentimental fool, he was. Just as he was entertaining the idea of asking Reggie to stay on. After the last breach of the grounds having someone else on staff with a bit of fight in him could be a blessing for the both of them. Taking up arms again had been easy enough, but having someone like Reggie on hand would be better than a pistol in the drawer.

But, he thought as he joined Reggie on the bed and Reggie’s hand slid down his spine, a great deal could change in twenty years, couldn’t it. Alfred turned enough to take a kiss before he bent to carry his weight on one forearm and reached back to get himself open and wet. Throughout, Reggie kept hands on him, long sweeping touches that were tender in a way that Alfred couldn’t recall from any time in the past. It made him restless, keyed up beyond the promise of getting fucked. “Good enough,” he declared as he wiped his fingers off on a towel, and Reggie was slow to stir and settle behind him.

There was a pause, a heaviness in the air of words gone unsaid, and then the sound of Reggie rolling a condom on. Out of habit, Alfred stretched to feel for himself that it was in place, and he kept his fingers hovering light near the thick curve of Reggie’s cock as Reggie shuffled inches closer. A couple swipes of the head along where he was slicked up and ready made Alfred hold his breath in anticipation for that first slow push and he exhaled when it came, forehead meeting the pillow as Reggie eased into him with a familiar gritty sigh.

“Hard, Reg,” he said, because the thought of being fucked slow and gentle enough to feel every inch of every stroke made him think of Thomas. With a tight throat, he rasped, “Hard as you can.”

“When have I ever done otherwise, Alfie?” Reggie replied, his hands settling low on Alfred’s back, thumbs digging in near the divots of his spine.

Alfred didn’t bother to muster a retort, and he didn’t need to. The next press of Reggie’s hips snug against him was brief, a faint kiss of flesh before Reggie’s grip clamped down on his sides and Alfred found himself driven forward, skull nearly cracking against the headboard when the force of Reggie’s cock thrust into him achingly deep. Alfred hastily swallowed a breath, his fingertips tingling as he rose up to grip the heavy wood and find the purchase to hold himself steady.

This was-- Alfred shuddered as the stretch tugged at the scar tissue in his shoulder. This was more like it--more along the lines of how it used to go--with him breathing through his teeth as Reggie rode him into the sheets and the exhilarating promise of being fucked so hard he could come without a hand on him.

The smack to his flank startled a sound out of him, then a laugh, and Alfred counted down silently for the moment when Reggie’s hand would skim up to curl over his shoulder and hold there to grind their bodies together. He didn’t have to wait long; some dance moves are never unlearned. The thumb settling near the notch of his spine at the base of his neck came matched by a fan of fingers that crept up to settle over his ribs. Reggie had always touched him like this, avoiding the flex of muscle to feel for the spaces between his bones. Thomas on the other hand had sought out the softness hidden in places like the inside of his elbow or between the spread of his fingers, and Martha…. Martha had simply adored to touch all of him, a favor he’d returned with great delight.

Alfred shut his eyes and twisted his head, pressing bared teeth to his bicep as he focused on the jostling rhythm that rippled through his body and the sensations that followed it. The bed was sturdy enough not to knock but he could hear it anyway, the slap of skin on skin easily turning into the crack of wood on plaster. Pleasure took him over in waves; each time Reggie pulled him back to meet the plunge of his cock Alfred felt a little lighter, unfocused in the best of ways. Soon he stopped noticing much of anything beyond the sweat gathering at his temple and the heavy swing of his balls and the straining of his cock that was so desperately hard that he wished--Christ did he wish--for something soft and sweet to sink into.

Stubbornly he kept his hands away from the leaking tip of his cock. He braced both hands on the headboard instead and shoved back to fuck himself when Reggie’s pace slowed.

"Thought of you now and again when the nights were cold and lonely," Reggie told him between heavy rasping breaths. His hands flexed and it drew a shudder and a shiver through Alfred that began in his core and spread to the tips of his fingers and the crown of his skull. Pinpricks of sensation followed like aftershocks, all of it underwritten by the hard slap of their bodies. The thick weight of Reggie’s cock and the brush of breath across Alfred’s back slicked with sweat felt incredible, and when he came, white-knuckled and panting, his entire body trembled.

He sank down, limbs liquid as his face met the pillow again, and his breath was driven from him in short bursts as Reggie used him all the harder. 

Reggie made only the faintest sound when he came, a sigh like skittering leaves as his mouth crushed to Alfred’s back and his body flattened against Alfred’s, gone still save for the pulse of his heart and his cock. For a moment they were nothing but heat and harsh breaths and the slide of bare skin, but then Reggie was rolling off him and staggering towards the toilet, leaving Alfred to tidy up the mess-- _Queensbury rules, discipline_ \--as his skin stung from the prickle of short whiskers. He sat up, body cooling quickly in the chill of the air.

Alfred dressed with brisk efficiency. He and Reggie had never been fond of laying around together, not unless the whole point was to have a go again as quickly as possible, but as he shook out his shirt and pulled it on, a touch of regret lingered. All that awaited him downstairs was a narrow bed with cold sheets. He heard the taps turn on in the en suite and that was that, there’d be no reason to linger.

_You could stay the whole night just the once._

Leaving Reggie to have his shower, Alfred closed the door and held it shut behind him. Glad not to find Bruce’s shadow trying to sneak around any corners, he drew in a deep, steadying breath and looked towards the tall casement windows. If the storm brewing outside grew any worse the boy would be up and about for certain. Twelve going on thirteen wasn’t too old to be frightened by thunderstorms.

He thought to head to his own chambers and wash up, but found himself yielding to wistful nostalgia instead, manufacturing the excuse of securing the windows in the rest of the upstairs bedrooms so that eventually he stood, his body flush with pleasant twinges, just inside the threshold of Thomas and Martha’s room. He closed his eyes and thought of warm sheets and lazy kisses.

_Just the once, Alfred._

Perhaps he should’ve when he’d had the chance, even though he vastly preferred his plain, ground-level quarters to staring up at a coffered ceiling from the opulence of a bed that could fit four with room for another. Reggie would understand that, though the bolt-hole feel of a room with a single narrow window would hardly be comforting to him in the way that it was for Alfred. He thought again about asking Reggie to stay, to do the charitable thing as Thomas would’ve, but a peal of thunder close to the house and the bright crackle of lightning that followed drew him away from all those foolish notions.

Stirred into motion, Alfred checked that each window was latched tight, and that the linens hadn’t gathered too much dust. Probably it would be best to head down to the kitchens and put the kettle on for the boy, pretend for the sake of a young ego that it was him who couldn’t sleep. The thought warmed him, even as he considered that it very well might be the truth.

He escaped the room’s quiet ghosts and heard that the water still ran in the guest room. There was little stopping him from going back in there and tapping on the door, only a concern for Bruce and the tangled promises wrapped up around the boy. He paused for only a heartbeat as thunder boomed and something downstairs rattled. Could be Bruce was already up and about, or it could be Miss Kyle, come slinking back in like her namesake. Alfred smiled faintly as he rounded the banister. He would have to let himself be content with the state of things as they were.

As it’d been twenty years ago, a good fuck and a firm farewell was best.


End file.
